Fresh Start
by starrrz
Summary: A new house means a new start, at least that's what Robin is hoping.


_For Hopecoppice :)_

* * *

"What about my friends?" Ian whined.

"What about rugby season?" Paul added plaintively.

"What about exams!?" Chloe demanded, aghast.

"Yes!" Robin punched the air. "This is the best news ever!"

Mr. Branagh shifted uncomfortably, unused as he was to witnessing his youngest son do anything other than sulk, and continued with his explanation,

"Stokely isn't the same these days, not since the murders, and business hasn't picked up. Empty houses just don't need their toilets unblocking." Mr. Branagh shook his head solemnly. "I know Great Aunt Lil was a little," he paused, searching for a word, "odd, but the house is structurally sound."

There was the sound of chair legs scraping against the kitchen tiles, and Mr. Branagh frowned at being interrupted. "Where do you think you're going, Robin?"

Robin beamed.

"To start packing!"

* * *

The following Monday at school Robin couldn't stop smiling, not even - perhaps especially not - when Andrew Davis shied away from him nervously during Welsh.

"What are you so happy about, Branagh?" Richard Price, his long time nemesis, hissed later, out in the corridor as they lined up for their next lesson. "Count haven't come back, have he?"

More than a couple of people within earshot sniggered. His supposed love for Vlad 'I'm too grand to facebook the only person ever willing to be friends with me' Count had become the stuff of legend at Stokely Grammar.

Price grinned nastily, "Bet you've cried yourself to sleep every night since he broke up with you."

It must have been the thought of their imminent move from Stokely - because it definitely wasn't any lingering sense of loyalty towards Vlad - but instead of staring at the floor, or balling his fists and imagining what he would do to Price if he wasn't so prone to bruising, he launched himself at the other boy.

Price wasn't expecting it and Robin managed to land a fist, and then another, before Mr. Archwright was hauling him off of Price and yelling at the pair of them.

"It's like working in a zoo!" Mr. Archwright spat, holding Price at arm's length and preventing him retaliating. "Go to Mrs. Harker's office!"

* * *

"You're not stupid," Mrs. Harker said after he had been summoned in, sounding less angry and more exasperated, "you have the potential to really make something of yourself."

Robin shrugged, and stared at a point somewhere above her left shoulder.

"I've heard about your move; I don't want to have to give your new school a bad report of you."

That struck a chord, and Robin dropped his gaze to the desk. Beddrod High was supposed to be a fresh start, far away from anyone who knew him.

Mrs. Harker sighed. "You're on report for the rest of the week. Get back to your lesson."

He could have gone back to maths, Robin supposed, and waited for Price to get his own back. It wasn't an appealing prospect though, not on any level, and he made his way instead behind the gym, where there was a gap in the fence that lead down to the canal towpath.

They had used to go there sometimes - him and Vlad - not during lessons, obviously, because Vlad was swot enough to put even his own sister to shame, but on the weekends when Vlad wanted to be free of the oppressive atmosphere of the castle, and he couldn't bear to be in the same building as his parents.

Vlad had told him all sorts of things then, cloistered together on some bench or other overlooking the murky water. That he was his best friend, and that he'd die if his dad made him move back to Transylvania, because Robin meant so much to him.

Now, watching the ducks navigate through rubbish and discarded shopping trolleys, Robin struggled to remember just why they had been such good friends in the first place. Vlad hadn't been anything special, and it wasn't as if they had ever really had all that much in common.

And, yet, he couldn't shake it. The way his heart clenched and his stomach twisted whenever he thought of Vlad, of his (stupid) smile and (stupid) accent, and the vague sense that there was a secret they were keeping from everyone.

Price was right, he supposed. They all were. There was only one reason why he could spend so much time obsessing over someone who in an entire year had never bothered to so much as pick up the phone and call him.

Robin stood then, abruptly, and shoved his hands into his pockets. He hoped spitefully that Vlad rang once they'd moved, hoped he turned up on the doorstep, teary eyed and remorseful. He wouldn't care, Robin told himself. He'd have new friends, and new hobbies, and someone to hold his hand, and laugh at his jokes. Someone fitter than Vlad could ever hope to be.

The new house was going to mean a whole new life, and he wasn't going to let Vlad Count spoil it.


End file.
